


Moments from the Brink

by butwordsarewind (sungabraverday)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Gen, I'm Sorry, K-Day, San Francisco, Tumblr: jaegercon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 00:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungabraverday/pseuds/butwordsarewind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five people who died on K-Day, and one person who lived to feel the loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moments from the Brink

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE NOTE: far more than 5 people die. None of them are named, but they're still PoV characters, so exercise discretion when reading.

**i)**

Driving into the city is one of the most spectacular views in the world, he's pretty sure. The towers of the Golden Gate Bridge loom up the road, and beyond that, there's the city. San Francisco. She's gorgeous, and for him, even though he can't really afford it, she's home. And so he's driving into the city on a Saturday for no reason other than he wants to when the ground shakes. 

It's rough, and traffic grinds to a halt. He turns on the radio, and already the news station is reporting about buildings damaged in the quake. You think they'd learn, living on a fault line the way they do, but no, there are never enough precautions and something always falls down.

It takes a minute before he looks out of his window, and when he does, he almost doesn't believe it.

There's something rising from the ocean. At first it's only a grey line, but within moments it's clearly a head. It reminds him of a dinosaur, he thinks for one surreal moment, like a dilophosaurus, and he would wonder how he even remembered that, only this thing, whatever it is, is so much bigger than that. It's like Jurassic Park multiplied by ten. Maybe twenty.

It's coming closer, closer, with one clawed foot reaching out over the bridge, and fuck, it's going to step down, and they're all going to plunge into the chilly waters of the Bay, and that'll be it, caught in the twisted metal of the bridge and cars and it's too late to do anything about it.

The foot falls, and all he can think is _god, I'll never tell Christine I loved her_.

 

**ii)**

Her trip to Alcatraz was supposed to be a nice historical visit to one of the most famous sites in San Francisco, a little dark perhaps, but educational. This is not what she had intended. 

The audio tour was forgotten when the earthquake emergency procedures lead her and the other tourists outside to the courtyard. She stands at the railing, and from there she can see the _kaiju_ as it rises from the water. It's like the films she had grown up with as a young girl, and she knows what happens to cities in those films. She stands and watches as the _kaiju_ lifts its gigantic clawed foot and presses down on the Golden Gate Bridge, looming large in the distance. The cables snap like elastics and the bridge deck crumbles in fractured pieces down into the bay. 

In a film, Alcatraz would be next. It was the second most obvious landmark, and landmarks always get destroyed in films. 

In reality, it is headed straight for the island. Nervous tour guides try to persuade everyone back inside, as if the concrete blocks of a century old prison can protect them from this kind of a creature. She knows better. There is nothing that can prevent this now. She is going to die. She doesn't plan on dying in prison, not even an abandoned one.

The _kaiju_ sends waves out in ripples, crashing harsh against the shoreline. It's moving straight towards them still, smashing boats and cargo ships that have the nerve to be in its way, like swatting flies. It looks like it's scoping out the area and finding the best targets, trying to understand how they work before it destroys them. She respects that. It terrifies her - of course it does - but this is clearly an intelligent entity. If she weren't here right now, going to die, then she knows she would study it, learn everything she could about it to tear it down and take it apart and understand how something from the fiction of her childhood could possibly be real.

But that's a what if, and there is no more time for _what if_ in her life.

It's only a few minutes before it's upon them. The ridge on its head blocks out the sun, and it roars, and it's all she can do to stay standing upright with the force of the air from its lungs. She's the only one left outside, and she can feel the _kaiju_ looking at her.

The last thing she sees is teeth twice her height and a tongue glowing fire-orange reaching out to grasp her, like a baby that puts things in its mouth to figure them out. Someone behind her screams. She doesn't.

 

**iii)**

On another day she would be reporting about the traffic, but this isn't another day. There is a monster - a gigantic semi-reptilian monster - in the middle of the San Francisco Harbour, and nobody gives a fuck about the traffic. Besides, the Golden Gate Bridge is destroyed, so no one's going anywhere. 

She doesn't even know if she's really broadcasting any more. The monster is now storming its way along the Embarcadero towards the Civic Center, and she's trying to say things that are clever and intelligent or at least lucid and not frantic but she knows that it's almost at the station. There are probably people in there, and if there aren't then she's definitely off air. But she is a journalist, and she will do whatever she can to get this news out. This is important.

The helicopter swings around, and the cameraman beside her zooms in on the devastation on the Bridge. It's gone from tower to tower, steel torn to shreds and dangling useless over the water. The whir of the rotor masks the sound of the screams, but she can imagine them. _This must be what a war correspondent feels like_ , she thinks, and then vows that whatever she had thought of the job before, she will never be a war correspondent.

They fly over the harbour, where Alcatraz has been totaled, and towards Pier 39. Down the road the footprints have pushed the pavement so heavily that in places the sea water is seeping in to the prints. There are no buildings left standing in its wake.

Their pilot is ex-Air Force, skilled and fearless, and the cameraman asks if he could do something dangerous but possibly incredibly rewarding. He signs okay, and swings them in close, the camera taking in just vast expanses of mottled grey skin. This is the only chance they'll have to get the footage - the Air Force is telling them to clear the sky, and they will. In just one minute, they'll swing past it and on towards the airport.

The monster's tail comes out of nowhere, swinging out sideways towards them. Their pilot swerves to avoid it, but he can hardly see it and it's too late. They careen into the side of the beast, rotor blades slashing and then cracking, and then there's nothing left but static.

 

**iv)**

He gets the call a few minutes after the earth stops moving. "We'll need you in as soon as you can. We'll have months worth of work to do, and we need you to get there as soon as you can," his boss tells him. 

He promises to be there, and pulls on his working clothes and steel toed boots, and walks the ten blocks to their construction company. The streets are free from obvious debris, but that doesn't mean there isn't damage. 

He gets into the office, and knows instantly that something else isn't right. The radio is on, and it's not the usual blaring classic rock. It's the usual disc jockey though, delivering frantic news. "Monster," is all he hears, and he reaches over to turn it off, but his boss reaches out a hand to stop him.

"You can't seriously believe that drivel," he says, laughing, but his boss's face shows no sign of joking.

"Turn around," is all he says. 

He looks behind him and through the plate-glass windows out towards the heart of the city. They don't have much of a view, but it's just enough. It's different. 

There should be sky between those buildings. 

Those buildings should be taller.

That's not a building.

 

**v)**

The siren screams a warning as the ambulance speeds down a hill, avoiding the monster's path as best as they can predict, heading for where the damage is worst. 

There's rubble in the street, bricks and timber and dust, and the paramedic parks the vehicle and unloads the stretcher. There are already people flocking towards them, but they can walk - they aren't his first priority. He asks them where the people who are most hurt are, and no one says anything for a moment and then, "by the waterfront." 

It's a little girl who speaks up, and he knows instantly that it's one of her parents that's hurt. "Show me," he says, and she does.

It's worse than he had imagined. There's a burnt-out and chewed-up helicopter, speckled with royal blue and holes like Swiss cheese. The trees that had once lined the street are shrivelling, leaves fallen on the ground and covered in the same bright blue that's speckled on virtually everything. It's surreal. It should be impossible, and not for the first time he pinches himself to make sure he's not dreaming. He's definitely awake. He just doesn't know what's happening.

The girl tugs on the edge of his jacket and points. "My daddy's there."

It's a wreck of a car, and there's no way her father's still alive, but he goes over to check anyway, because there is a little girl who needs to know he tried. He leans into the vehicle and checks for a pulse. It's bad form to stick part of your body, let alone your head, into a crushed vehicle, but with everything going on it seems like the worst of his worries.

The girl whimpers, and he hits his head as he pulls himself out to see what's wrong. Something drips on the back of his neck, and when he reaches his arm around to wipe it of, his sleeve comes back smeared with blue.

She's fallen into a puddle of the blue fluid, and suddenly it occurs to him that this is blood from whatever the monster is. She's covered in it, her once red shoes now a violent shade of purple. He bends down to scoop her into her arms, and she comes gratefully. She presses herself against him, clinging and sobbing, and buries. He begins to walk back to the ambulance, up the hill and away from the chaos.

Except. The spot on the back of his neck begins to burn. The girl's heartbeat and breathing is becoming arrhythmic. Her hair is blue and touching him. He's not sure which revelation comes first, but they fit together like puzzle pieces, and he knows that the signs for either of them aren't good.

They never make it back to the ambulance.

 

**&**

 

**i)**

Miles away in San Jose, out of immediate danger, a girl plays on the playground when the earth shakes. She runs to her mother, who lifts her into her arms and takes her home.

They turn on the television to watch the news, but it's only on for a brief moment before her mother screams and turns it off again. 

She wraps her arms around her mother, trying to fix it, and they sit in silence like that until one of their neighbours comes around to pick them up and take them over to their place. "You don't need to be alone right now," she says.

It's only once they're there that she finds out what's going on, why her mom's so sad.

Her dad had meetings once a week in San Francisco - always Saturdays, every week. Today. He was in the city when the monster made landfall, and he's dead, killed by that... that thing, whatever it's called. She doesn't care what they're calling it - Axehead, monster, _kaiju_ , Trespasser, it doesn't matter - she just hates it.

She curls into her mom's arms and tries to pretend that it will fix the fact that she'll never see her dad again.

**Author's Note:**

> For [Jaegercon](http://jaegercon.tumblr.com), K-Day, and because I am utterly devoted to filling in the corners of universes. 
> 
> I'm sorry. I really, truly am.


End file.
